NYC Yesterday
NYC yesterday--before the onset of this tornadic ice age, when you could leave your dwelling without fear of being picked up like a scrap of paper and blown in three directions in as many seconds and furthermore become frozen like a leaf of lettuce dipped in liquid nitrogen and then propelled sideways into a striped, painted brick wall by 60 mph northeasterly gusts of wind, to shatter into shards of yourself as thin and fragmented as a broken, light, dimming bulb, coming home, coming home to ask yourself why, why do I exist?--I had breakfast with Bernadette.
Did you bring your glasses?
No, I forgot. You?
No.
Could just get eggs and bacon and grits or something. I know they have those three things here.
Yeah, Bernadette said, squinting at her menu, while moving it to and fro like the slide on a trombone.
The Hispanic waiter said, there is no grits.
I ordered them anyway.
No grits. Potato, hash.
I became perplexed.
He and Bernadette tried to help me understand about potato, hash. I wondered if they meant hashbrowns, and if so, why would they not just say so? There was a sense of mild panic as we all waited to see what I would do; if I would be able to pull out of this breakfast ordering tailspin. When prodded verbally by Bernadette, and the waiter's furrowed brow, both of them communicating the same thing, did I want that, I said I guess so?
Bernadette thinks I am the funniest person since Slim Pickens, even when I'm not trying to be.
Later I took pictures of a small black and white dog with Marty Feldman eyes as Bernadette and her niece gently coerced him to be like Gumby or Pokey and spell out the letters L-O-V-E, for a Valentine's card. This was not the first time this dog had performed this favor but the previous pictures were unavailable, so the dog, thinking maybe somebody would play catch with him if he complied, complied. I kicked the ball across the cement floor before leaving but by the time the dog retrieved it so we could do it again and again and again, I was out the door with Bernadette to see on 2nd Avenue, Children of Men, which is the finest incredibly violent brooding dark tale of a nearly hopeless future I have seen in some time.
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